


I Wanted to Give You Everything

by tatertatra



Category: Dishonored (Video Games)
Genre: F/M, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Motherhood, Post-Dishonored 2 (Video Game), Pregnancy, Prompt Fic, Vignette, don't think about it too much just sit back and enjoy emsider baby, emsider, is it possible????? probably not but who cares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-26
Updated: 2017-03-26
Packaged: 2018-10-11 00:03:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10450509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatertatra/pseuds/tatertatra
Summary: Alexi Kaldwin came screaming into the world with tufts of black hair and irises so dark, they stole Emily’s breath.It was a single instant, a fluttering of pale pink eyelids that pulled back over too-intelligent eyes, that taught Emily she could love and fear in equal, intense parts. She’d sobbed then, burying her face in Alexi’s neck and trying desperately not to think of her mother.





	

Alexi Kaldwin came screaming into the world with tufts of black hair and irises so dark, they stole Emily’s breath. 

It was a single instant, a fluttering of pale pink eyelids that pulled back over too-intelligent eyes, that taught Emily she could love and fear in equal, intense parts. She’d sobbed then, burying her face in Alexi’s neck and trying desperately not to think of her mother.

 

 

How many times had he left her wanting? 

He’d deliver some fatalistic lecture on the fate of the world then draw his hands over her throat, her waist, through her hair. The Outsider had a special way of appearing to her when she was alone and leaving her with fevered skin and heart pounding in her chest. Every time, she’d curse him and grip the sink, the desk, the throne until her knuckles turned white. 

They were touches just shy of being dreams. If she didn’t know better, she would’ve been convinced they  _ were _ just dreams. 

 

 

Emily kissed him first—quick and desperate and biting. 

He grinned and ran his thumb over the pulse in her neck before he disappeared. She threw a tome against the wall and collapsed into her chair, satisfied enough to watch as the book burst into a cascade of ancient papers. 

 

 

The next time she saw him,  _ he _ kissed  _ her _ . 

His mouth moved against hers with languid, frustrating softness. She thought about digging her nails into his skin until he figured out she didn’t want  _ soft _ . Instead, he trapped her hands in his above her head and pushed. She gasped when her back hit the wall. 

Then he was gone again.

 

 

She waited, semi-patiently, for him to return. He stepped from the shadows in the corner of her bedroom and she was ready. 

Their colliding brought teeth and tongue together, hands on hips and chests and clawing at fabric. She threaded her fingers through his hair. The sound that escaped the back of his throat coiled in her stomach. 

Clothes slipped off as they worked across the room, landing wherever on the floor and across end tables and silver platters of fruit. 

When the back of his knees met her bed, he fell and pulled her down on top of him. For a moment, Emily thought he looked delightfully human. No god, no life stretched outside of time, just a person near sick with desire. Dangerously close to love.  

He stared up at her, taking in the hair that had fallen around her shoulders and the breathless, blown out look in her eyes. 

“We’ll never be able to take this back,” he said.

“Good.”

She put her hands on his chest and watched him come undone.

 

 

News of Emily’s pregnancy travelled plague-fast. Hushed words over a parlor of nobles, lips curled into cruel smiles as the rumors spread. The empress had stopped taking wine with her meals. A guest had heard her retching in the early hours of the morning. At the right angle, in the right blouse, if one looked hard enough, a swollen belly could be spotted under a subconscious, protective hand. 

They took bitter mouthfuls of liquor and tossed their heads back. A toast to the bastard empress and her unborn child. Unwed and unfit, just like her mother.

May she fare better than the last. 

 

 

There was a part of Emily that wished she kept a lover around just to make it easier. Well, a  _ different _ lover. 

Her lady’s maid was the first one to find out, a lean little thing with a pinched face that reminded her of Callista. Leliana fluttered about without grace, but she made up for it with kindness and a knack for keeping secrets.

She nearly dropped her tray of tea when she found Emily hunched over the toilet, bathroom door swung open and heaving up the previous night’s dinner. 

“Lady Emily,” Leliana cried, shoving the tray onto the dresser outside the door. “Stay here, I’ll go fetch the doctor!”

Emily reared back from the toilet, turning to reach out towards Leliana. “No! You can’t tell anyone!” She dropped her hand to her stomach.

Leliana paused, eyes flickering between Emily’s watery eyes and hand resting on her abdomen. It took a moment for her brain to process but when it did, her mouth popped open. 

“No one can know, not yet. Please, Leliana.”

She wrung her hands on her apron. Her dear Emily was with child, but she’d never seen her with anyone. There had been a Wyman in the beginning of her employment in Dunwall Tower. To Leliana, they might as well have been a myth, only spoken of between Corvo and Emily in angry whispers just before she entered the room. Journal entries and monthly letters that eventually stopped. 

“If I may ask, who is--”

“You may not,” Emily snapped. 

A wave of sadness and confusion washed over her face. Leliana had never met the late Jessamine Kaldwin, but just then, Emily looked like portraits that decorated the halls. Leliana’s heart ached.

Emily rubbed her forehead, sighing and easing herself up from the floor. “I’m sorry to snap at you. I’m just—” She stared at the wall, eyebrows fussed together over weary eyes. “I think I’d prefer another coup to this.”

Leliana snorted before she could stop herself. Emily smiled softly and it felt as if maybe, things would be alright.

 

 

Corvo Attano felt like he was the last person in the whole empire to know he was going to be a grandfather. It wasn’t this way, of course, but it didn’t ease the sting when he’d walked in on Emily and Leliana fussing over a fitted coat. 

“You still have a few weeks until you start showing, but keep it up with the tight clothes and someone will notice your sudden change in wardrobe,” Leliana said, running her hands around Emily’s waist to smooth the fabric.

Emily swatted her away. “I’m capable of dressing myself, you know.” 

“Just doting. That’s my job.” Leliana patted her cheek and tucked a stray piece of hair behind Emily’s ear. 

Corvo dropped the book he’d been carrying. The two women jumped apart, Emily’s hands worrying at the front of her coat. 

Leliana, cheeks burning under her freckles, dipped her head and quickly slid out of the room. Emily stared at the floor, shame coloring her cheeks like Leliana’s. They stood alone in the room with the air thick.

Corvo was the first to break the silence. “Until you start showing?”

“Yes.” Emily flinched, so sudden and quick, anyone but Corvo would’ve missed it. Her look was caught somewhere between the little girl with bows in her hair that he remembered, and someone much older than he’d ever noticed. A woman terrified. 

He took a step forward, acutely aware of the ache in his bones that had started to settle over the last year. “Emily, why didn’t you tell me?”

She looked up at him, surprise widening her eyes as he crossed the room and scooped her up. She hid her face against his shoulder. He pretended not to notice as she started to cry.

Whatever, whoever had happened, had led to this, didn’t matter right now. History wouldn’t be allowed to repeat itself and for that, he was content just to hold her. 

“Courage,” he whispered into her hair, and she squeezed him tighter.

 

 

The first time Emily felt the baby move, she was sitting at her desk with an endless stack of papers. Like eyelashes against cheeks, the feather-light brush of something but on the  _ inside _ . She dropped her pen and her hand flew to her newly swollen belly. 

When the baby moved again, a laugh forced its way out of her throat. It—the baby, her baby—was small and real and so  _ alive _ . 

Emily wondered what kind of person her child would be.  

Would they be golden and prosperous like her grandfather, or kind but sad like her mother? Maybe they’d be dark and strong like Corvo. 

Maybe they’d be another thing entirely: cold and wise and haunting, just like  _ him _ . One foot in the Void and the other in Dunwall, never truly belonging to either. 

Emily’s hand pressed against her stomach instinctively. 

No, they’d be worthy of something better than that. 

 

 

Impossible, earth-shaking, and Void-cursed. Those were the thoughts that washed over the Outsider’s mind; in that order. He felt Emily’s fear wave over the worlds too, her determination born of anger. 

For everything he could do, he could not be a father, not in the way anyone needed. Emily would be alone in this, and that spark of hatred seared across her bones. 

He saw a moment of everything, unending questions from people who didn’t matter. If no one knew of a lover, then who was the father? How could Emily make Jessamine’s mistake? And then there was Emily alone. It hadn’t been enough to be the occasional heretic, no. No, now she would become the mother of heresy itself. 

He wasn’t omniscient, able to pluck the string of time at will to see whatever he wished, but he saw random glimpses. Sometimes they were horrible, sometimes they were meaningless. The place he watched shifted to something else. Emily, poring over notes at her desk with the slightest swell to her abdomen, gave way to another. 

_ Alexi _ . 

That’s what she’d name her, an ode to a friend that had given everything for her empress. If he were a sentimental man, he would’ve smiled. 

Alexi’s foot slipped on a mast’s rigging and she nearly fell to the deck below, but instead of being afraid, a wicked grin set across her mouth. She looked over her shoulder to stare at the sunset but it was as if she knew he was there. Her eyes, shaped small and scrutinous like Emily’s, found his across the expanse. Her irises were brown-black, the pupil only visible as a pinprick against the sun. 

She had his nose and cheeks, but Emily’s coal-colored hair that she kept down and untamed.

_ That _ was to spite her mother. He smiled in earnest. 

No mark scorched the skin of her hands where she held the ropes. She didn’t need it. She turned to stare at the deck, focusing through the steel to the inside of the bridge. Guards paced lazily through the halls and Emily watched the churning sea from the window.  

He mused. So, this was who his daughter would be,  _ could _ be. Alexi Ailish Jessamine Kaldwin, first of her name. An empress unlike any the Isles had ever seen; a little feral and a little mischievous and capable of so much more than anyone else. 

He passed mere observation a long time ago, but this… oh, this would be fascinating to watch. 

 

 

Emily was in no form to go skipping across the roofs of Dunwall and she didn’t think she’d ever get used to it. To find a shrine, she was going to have to do it the old-fashioned way: walking with vague instincts and pure, dumb luck. 

She didn’t know if she’d manage to make it out of the tower in her condition, but she stole some of Corvo’s still too big clothes and slipped out of the servant’s entrance without any second glances. With her hair tucked under a cap, she thought of Cecelia. 

She’d been thinking of them a lot lately, all the people from those days at the Hound Pits Pub. It felt haunted, like none of what had happened then was entirely real. Emily pulled the oversized coat tighter around her and forced them from her mind.

It took two hours before she found a proper shrine. 

She felt it calling in her bones, tucked in an abandoned building in the Distillery District. The mark on her hand hummed as she eased herself through a loosely boarded window. The smell of rotten, wet wood filled her nose. Beyond the skittering of rats in the walls, Emily heard the whispers.

It’d been so long since she’d had to hunt the Outsider down herself, she’d almost forgotten what the runes sounded like. The hushed singing was almost comforting. 

Before her hands even brushed the bone, the room warped around her and she was pulled into the Void. She missed the rush of it, falling out of the world and being ripped into a current to a different one, a darker one. 

He sat on a grey slab with his hands in his lap, watching like he always did. “Emily Kaldwin.”

She said nothing and frowned. Seeing him made her angrier than she thought it would. She was half tempted to shove him backwards off the rock and watch him fall, not that it’d do much good. 

His chest rose as he took a deep breath. “The world feels different these days, doesn’t it? Like pieces are fitting together in a puzzle no one knew existed.”

“I’ve missed you.”  _ Stupid _ . She bit back a groan and the desire to turn on her heel and march off the side of the island. 

He blinked. “To be honest, that surprises me.” 

She pinched the bridge of her nose. “Don’t get used to it. What I mean is, why haven’t you visited?”

He thought for a moment, head cocked to the side and eyes narrowed. 

The words tumbled out of her mouth before she could stop them. “Why now? Of all times. Why pull one of your stupid disappearing acts now? I know you’ve known and you chose to stay away. Why?”

“I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“Well I’m certainly glad you bothered to ask instead of making assumptions,” she seethed. She paused to breathe and stare at her feet. Her scowl softened. “We’ll never be normal, nothing about this will ever be  _ normal _ , but that doesn’t mean I never want to see you again.”

Silence. Just as Emily was about to turn and will herself back to Dunwall, he spoke. “Do you want to know about her?”

“ _ Her _ ?” Her heart skipped. “You’ve seen her?”

“For a moment,” he mused. He flickered and appeared before her. “The world must certainly ready itself, she’ll be a force to be reckoned with.”

Emily took comfort in that. It didn’t fix anything, make them better or less complicated, but a little bit of the fear gave way to something strong and warm. “Good.” Her fingers sought the sleeve of his coat like she had a million times before. “I hope we’re worthy of her.”

The corners of his mouth turned up. “As do I.”

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> for starkroqers on tumblr  
> thank you for the prompt/headcanons that led to this ♥  
> thank you to alex and leslie for being my betas, as always.
> 
> So this was never a Thing I had considered before, but it was fun to write nevertheless. I hope you all enjoy it. I might write more for this later, or at least for Alexi.   
> The title is from Civilian by Wye Oak. (You should listen to it and get emo about Emily/Jessamine/Alexi with me). 
> 
> Feel free to send me more prompts and requests over on my tumblr (jynersvs)


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